At least the Grey Coppers were behaving in a more practical way—while the Anglewings made their fuss, the light-weights were snatching up anything that came handy, tent-poles or young trees that came away from the ground, and whacking away at the camp with them, knocking down people and tents and spreading the fires even more.

“There goes a gun,” Majestatis said laconically, pointing with his long talons: the French had managed to pull round one of their cannon the right way, despite the confusion, and a dozen men aiming pepper guns were standing with it.

“Come away!” Temeraire called down hurriedly. “Velocitas! Palliatia—oh, they are not listening!” and they paid for it: the cannon fired, canister shot; the pepper guns spat, and a general shriek went up from the Anglewings as the balls scattered over them. “Quick, Majestatis, we are fastest—”

“Hey, I ain’t going to just sit here,” Requiescat said, but Temeraire was already diving, roaring. “The gun for me,” Majestatis called, as they plummeted, and he managed to bang over the hot cannon as he shot past, his wickedly long claws slashing ruin among the artillery-men.

Temeraire went for the Anglewings, bulling them along and up again, and nudging a shoulder under Velocitas, who had gotten worst-hit, a pepper ball right in the face. His golden-yellow head was speckled black and red everywhere, and his eyes and nostrils were already swollen up so dreadfully he could not see, streams of mucus dripping away from his face; he was moaning wretchedly.

And then Requiescat came down behind them going too fast for his weight and bowled through everyone, crashing through the camp with his wings spread trying to slow himself, and knocking soldiers and dragons both every which way as he drove a massive furrow down the middle of the campground with his talons and his tail.

“Aloft!” Temeraire called furiously, squirming himself free of several tents and shaking off a couple of soldiers who had been thrown on his leg. “Everyone aloft, at once!” He punctuated the order with a roar, a proper one, which he aimed towards the caissons of ammunition stacked neatly by the guns. The pyramids of round-shot trembled and collapsed, balls rolling everywhere across the ground, crushing men’s legs, and the dragons all leapt aloft in the fresh confusion.

“Look, look,” cried Fricatio, one of the Grey Coppers, as he climbed up, “look, I caught a horse,” waving it in his talons.

“This is no time to be eating!” Temeraire said, but it reminded him of their real purpose, and he went up a little more to see: sure enough there were a great many shadows moving about near the pigs, and the gate of the pen was swinging wide open. “We have the pigs!” he cried, and everyone cheered noisily, and Temeraire added, “Now we can go!”

“Why?” Majestatis said.

“What?” Temeraire said.

“Why ought we go?” Majestatis said, and pointed down: all the soldiers were fleeing in a body eastward, routed, only stopping long enough to heave the wounded upon waggons, and drag them away. Aloft, the Chevaliers were turning tail and going, too, and the camp in all its flames was left deserted, to its conquerors.

“Well,” Temeraire said the next morning, peering down the slightly charred barrel, “it is very nice, but I am not sure what we can do with it.”

“Drop it on their heads, next battle,” Moncey suggested.

“Listen to you talk; we shan’t waste a real cannon like that,” Gentius said. “What we need is some men to fire it for us. A proper artillery company. And we need some proper surgeons, too,” he added, “for us and for ’em,” meaning the prisoners, most of them wounded who had been left behind on the field. There were not very many of these; by the time the dragons had managed to put out the fires, nearly all the casualties were dead.

Lloyd and the men had helped the survivors away, and put up a tent for them, but that left all the dead men lying about. The battle had been very satisfying, if not quite as long or as ordered as one might have wished, and Temeraire was not sorry to have killed the soldiers: it was just as well, since otherwise they would have had to fight them again, and after all they had invaded. But he was sorry they were dead, and it made one rather sad to look at them.

Most of the ferals did not see what the difficulty was, and a couple were for eating them. Temeraire flattened his ruff in horror, and everyone else hissed disapprovingly, so this suggestion was withdrawn. “Yes, that is enough of that kind of talk,” Gentius said. “But we can’t leave them lying about, either. That ain’t fitting; they were good enemies.”

So a couple of the Reapers had dug a grave, perhaps a little deep, some twenty foot, and the couriers had collected up the dead and put them inside, and after they had filled the hole in, Chalcedony had respectfully stuck one of the least-charred French flags upright into the mound, and they had all bowed their heads solemnly for a moment, and then they had eaten some pigs.

Now they were beginning the work of picking through the remains of the camp. Most things had been burnt up, but for metal pots, buckles, cannon-shot, and most excitingly a great solid lump of gold, a heap of sovereigns melted all together, which had been found in the charred remains of a chest. Reedly had nosed it out onto the ground in front of all of them, and many heads had craned forward to look at it in admiration; it shone brilliantly in the morning sun.

“Well, how is it to be shared out?” Requiescat said, eyeing it covetously.

“We must put it aside somewhere safe,” Temeraire said, “and when the war is over, we will take all the treasure we have gotten, like this, and have some splendid pavilions built all over, which we can all use whenever we like, which will be better than for us all to have only enough to buy a piece of a pavilion in only one place. And what is left over, we will use to get medals, for everyone, and everyone will have a medal to suit their size.”

All approving this arrangement, a few dragons were detailed off—after complicated negotiations, resulting in Reedly, Chalcedony and another Yellow Reaper, and an Anglewing, all going together, when Reedly could easily have carried it alone—to escort the gold chunk to a place of safety back in the breeding grounds. The rest of them had fallen back to searching the camp with even more enthusiasm than before: then they had uncovered the cannon.

Most of the guns had been ruined; those whose housings were not burnt or acid-eaten had been spiked by their crews before being abandoned. One, however, under the protective weight of a smothering tent, had escaped destruction. It was a little pitted, and its wheels were perhaps a bit singed along the edge, but it was a real great gun, a good twelve-pounder, and they had plenty of balls around for it. There was even a store of gunpowder left, as the waggon full of powder had been kept some distance away from the rest of the camp.

“But how are the men to know what is to be done, if they are not already soldiers?” Temeraire said. He had seen the guns fired many times, aboard ship, but he did not recall perfectly just how it was managed. “Perhaps Perscitia can work out—” he looked, and realized she was not poking through the camp with the others, but was sitting near the water-hole curled up in a lump.

“Are you hurt?” he inquired, having gone over to her.

“Of course I am not hurt,” she said, snappishly.

“Why are you sitting over here then, instead of coming to see; we have found some gold already, and maybe there is more.”

“Well, it is not as though I will have a share,” she said. “I did not do any fighting.”

“Everyone had a chance,” Temeraire said, injured; he did not feel he had been unfair. Naturally the heavy-weights ought to go first, if they could do the worst—